London 2012: Did Olympic Games fail to inspire the next generation?

Overall, the number of people playing sport once a week for half an hour have been restored to the levels seen immediately after last year's Olympics, following a fall six months ago which was blamed on bad weather.

Who's taking part in what?

Apr2012-Apr2013

Oct2012-Oct2013

Change

Source: Sport England's Active People Survey

Swimming

2.88m

2.93m

Increase

Athletics

1.95m

2.02m

Increase

Cycling

1.86m

2m

Increase

Football

1.94m

1.84m

Decrease

Golf

771,000

751,000

Decrease

Tennis

423,400

400,600

Decrease

Squash

257,100

240,700

Decrease

Rugby

union

166,000

159,600

Decrease

Boxing

149,7000

154,800

Increase

Cricket

189,000

148,300

Decrease

Participation among some social groups, such as black and ethnic minorities, those with disabilities and the less financially well off, is increasing.

And if you take the slightly longer view - not necessarily all the way back to when the Games were won in 2005 but maybe to October 2011 - then there has clearly been a reasonable jump in participation connected to London 2012.

But what cannot be avoided by policy makers is this simple statistic:

Almost 18 months on from the London Olympics and the number of people playing sport once a week has increased by only 200,000.

This is a disappointingly small return for the billions of pounds of investment pumped into the staging of the Games and the funding of grassroots legacy schemes thereafter.

That failure to really move the needle in the months since the Olympics will worry ministers and sports administrators, who know the glow of that unforgettable summer is already fading.

What will really trouble them is the continuing slump in the number of young people - aged 16-25 - playing sport. The latest figures show another decline - of 51,000, down to 3.74m - and it is clear that policy makers now need to take a much more interventionist approach to try to reverse what is looking like a long-term trend.

One of the big factors in that fall among the young has been football's alarming decline in popularity. Remarkably the national game is now only the fourth biggest participation sport behind swimming, athletics and cycling.

What this tells you (again) is that there is no direct link between the profile and popularity of a sport at the elite level and participation at the grassroots.

This point is most neatly made by tennis which again saw a decline in the 12 months from October 2012. Having already had some of its Sport England funding withheld in April following woeful results, it now faces further cuts after another drop of 39,000.

Analysis

Russell FullerBBC tennis correspondent

In the year that Andy Murray won Wimbledon, there has been a fall in the number of people who play tennis at least once a week.

Sport England's Active People Survey found that 406,000 people played in the year to October - a fall of 39,000 on the previous 12-month period.

The LTA was tasked with increasing that number to 450,000, and Sport England will now decide in January whether they feel the LTA's long term plans for increasing participation entitle them to receive £10.3m in withheld funding.

And this in the year Andy Murray became the first British man in 77 years to win the Wimbledon singles title.

But cycling, the poster boy of British sport, has managed to turn elite success and high profile into grassroots success. Its figures are up again in the last year and it is now the third most popular sport in the country. Why do some sports seem to be able to leverage success and big name stars into bigger participation numbers, while others can't?

Jennie Price, chief executive of Sport England, does not have all the answers but she says, "having a Wimbledon champion of itself is not enough. You have to have the programmes in place to capitalise on that success."

While Price is far from downbeat with the overall picture, she admits she will be disappointed if she does not now see a significant increase every six months.

This is ambitious but at least there now seems to be a shift in the rhetoric from those in charge.

Both Sport England and the new Sports Minister Helen Grant are talking much tougher with the sports bodies who are being paid half of the Government's £1bn participation legacy funding between now and 2017.

We should note Grant's threat on Thursday to take away funding from the sports if they don't "step up".

From January all sports will be subject to a more rigorous assessment system. Sport England says if governing bodies continue to fail then they will strip them of up to 20% of their funding and start spending it on their behalf.

As we get further away from the golden summer of 2012 then delivering legacy becomes less about the inspirational moments of the Games and more about the structures and funding put in place in the months immediately after the flame was extinguished.

The next year or two will be crucial in assessing whether David Cameron's coalition got it right or whether a huge opportunity has been squandered.

Comments

It's amazing that there's any increase at all given the Government's lack of commitment to sport in schools and the consequential reliance upon volunteers.The 2012 Olympics was an inspirational event and it's tremendous to see at least some potentially sustainable positive outcomes.

Why are we always obsessed with professionalising sporting participation: creating future medal winners, and focusing on the most gifted? This has to be as far from the actual needs of the nation as it is possible to get. What we really need is encouragement for ordinary young people to enjoy physical exercise and improve their fitness, feel confident and boost public health.

If the amount of public money spent on the commercial circus called the Olympics had been put into decent affordable playing and training facilities for ordinary people across the country, we might have been able to start on the road of doing things properly from the bottom up. In time we might even have got a premier football League with more than a sprinkling of British players. Money rules here

As a wheelchair user i am extremely disappointed by the 'legacy'. I am in my early 20's, fit and have been looking for places to play sport. My university failed to support this interest. I applied for the Paralympic Potential scheme. I was not contacted again and have found it difficult to find relevant information on sport participation. I have been actively looking, so i find this a disgrace.

Great example of an Olympic legacy sports project that has gone from strength to strength due to engagement with London 2012 . . . and it's in Bradford www.bpcabc.blogspot.com Glasgow 2014 will be yet another brilliant event. Get behind it.

The clever money is not being a sportsman but being a great coach. Many friends of mine are getting into coaching courses since the Olympics. Helps with both exercise and skills are also transferable to the workplace.

Sport England cut funding to rugby league. Yet it's still managed a 10% increase in participation in this latest survey. Will Sport England do the same now with the "failing" sports like football, rugby union and cricket?

Not holding my breath - SE is run by the same old public school characters who will continue to throw money at their favourite sports irrespective of the return on it.

#171. I am a working person, who's had plenty of experience of being poor. I loved every second of the Olympics and I loved the fact that we showed the rest of the world just what this tiny island can do. We've spent years being brainwashed about how rubbish we are (worst at this, lowest level at that): London 2012 showed that we are anything but. It certainly inspired me.

Like everything in this country (HS2, the banks, quantitative easing etc) it was paid for by the everyone but only benefitted the rich. Britain is a social apartheid where we, the working people, are expected to revel in the happiness of the few while we struggle to make ends meet.

One reason we won the Olympics was that we had already established School Sports Partnerships to deliver the 'legacy'.Sports bodies from around the world came to see them and returned to lobby their own governments to emulate the scheme. They were equally gobsmacked when Gove decided to dismantle them. The many international TV/press journalists who interviewed me all used the word 'hypocritical'.

It has to start with schools 40 years ago I had a minimum of 3 1 hour lessons a week plus playing & training in multiple sports after hoursMy three sons all had decent sports education & all still playBUT now my partners son only gets 1 x 45 minute lesson, they don't appear to have showers or changing rooms (in a brand new school) & wear their kit under their clothes after they have played???

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